with heat and indiscriminately, mindless of the rank, character, and situation of those with whom he disputes. Absolutely ignorant of the several gradations of familiarity and respect, he is exactly the same to his superiors, his equals, and his inferiors; and, therefore, by a necessary consequence, is absurd to two of the three. Is it possible to love such a man? No. The utmost I can do for him is, to consider him a respectable Hottentot *”.

He had lodged with his wife in the obscure courts and alleys about the Strand; but, to enable him to carry on his vast undertaking, and to have a convenient intercourse with his printer, Mr Strahan, he now hired a handsome house in Gough-square, Fleet-street; fitted up one of the upper rooms after the manner of a counting-house, and employed six amanuenses there in transcribing; five of whom were natives of North Britain, the two Messrs Macbean, the elder, author of " A System of Ancient Geography," Mr Shiels, the principal collector and digester of the materials for the

Letter CCXII.

"Lives of the Poets," to which the name of Mr Cibber is prefixed *; Mr Stewart, son of Mr George Stewart, bookseller in Edinburgh, and a Mr Maitland; the sixth was Mr Peyton, a French master, who published some elementary tracts. In furnishing the copyists their several tasks, he observed, according to Mr Boswell, the following process t. The words,

Johnson believed that Shiels was the sole author of these Lives (Life of Hammond), misled, no doubt, by partial and wrong information. His account of the matter has been clearly disproved in the "Monthly Review" for May 1792. Shiels, it appears, had quarrelled with Cibber, his Whiggish supervisor, for scouting his Jacobitical and Tory politics; and it is natural to suppose that he told his story in his own way. To this painful la*bourer Johnson shewed unceasing kindness. He was bred a mechanic; and, destitute of education, but not destitute of genius. He is the author of "Beauty, a Poem," printed in Pearch's Collection, "Marriage, a Poetical Essay," and " Musidorus, an Elegy on the Death of Thomson," whose manner he studied. He died of a consumption.

The account of the manner in which Johnson compiled his Dictionary, as given by Mr Boswell, is confused and erroneous; and a moment's reflection will convince every person of judgment could not be correct; for, to write down an alphabetical arrangement of all the words

partly taken from other dictionaries, and partly supplied by himself, having been first written down, with spaces left between them, he deli

in the English language, and then hunt through the whole compass of English literature for all their different significations, would have taken the whole life of any individual; but Johnson, who, among other peculiarities of his character, excelled most men in contriving the best means to accomplish any end, devised the following mode for completing his Dictionary, as he himself expressly described to the writer of this account. He began his task by devoting his first care to a diligent perusal of all such English writers as were most correct in their language, and under every sentence which he meant to quote, he drew a line, and noted in the margin the first letter of the word under which it was to occur. He then delivered these books to his clerks, who transcribed each sentence on a separate slip of paper, and arranged the same under the word referred to. By these means he collected the several words and their different significations; and when the whole arrangement was alphabetically formed, he gave the definitions of their meanings, and collected their etymologies from Skinner, Junius, and other writers on the subject. In completing his alphabetical arrangement, he, no doubt, would recur to former dictionaries, to see if any words had escaped him; but this, which Mr Boswell makes the first step in the business, was in reality the last; and it was doubtless to this happy arrangement that Johnson effected in a few years what employed the foreign academies nearly half a century. BISHOP PERCY.

vered in writing their etymologies, definitions, and various significations. The authorities were copied from the books themselves, in which he had marked the passages with a black lead pencil, the traces of which could easily be effaced. The models which Johnson followed, in the formation of his work were, the "Vocabulario" of the Academia della Crusca, and the Dictionnaire" of the French Academicians; both works of national utility, closely connected with the honour of the countries in which they were undertaken, and reflecting credit on the associated individuals by whom they were completed.

In the progress of this great compilation, which was to fix and elucidate his native language, and form the stable foundation of his philological fame, the intervals of individual exertion were sufficient to allow of occasional composition, very different from lexicography.

He contributed to the "Gentleman's Magazine" for May this year A Translation of a Latin Epitaph on Sir Thomas Hanmer *; To Miss-s

* The Latin is said to be written by Dr Freind.

on her giving the author a gold and silk net-work purse of her own weaving; Stella in Mourning; The Winter's Walk; Spring, an Ode; and To Lyce, an elderly Lady, distinguished by three asterisks. In the Magazine for December he inserted an Ode on Winter, which is one of the best of his lyric compositions.

In September this year, his fortunate pupil, Garrick, having become joint-patentee. and manager of Drury-Lane Theatre, he furnished him with a Prologue, spoken at the opening of the Theatre Royal; which, for just and manly dramatic criticism, as well as for poetical excellence, is unrivalled by any composition of that kind in our language, except Pope's prologue to "Cato." It traces the varied fortunes of the English stage, and the wild vicissitudes of dramatic taste, from the time of Shakespeare and Jonson to their decline, when the writers of pantomime and song confirmed the sway of Folly; and exhorts the audience to encourage the new manager; under whose direction it was predicted, that